I have always used conventional notches in my relatively limited felling experience. My father was actually a seasonal logger in the 1950-1980'time period and that is what he taught me. I know that many of the current loggers in this area are starting to use open faced notches. If I ever start to drop more trees, I would experiment with open face notches.
I feel someone should mention that all of this applies to living tree's. The standing dead ones that firewooders so love have very brittle hinges and cannot be relied upon to fall predictably no matter what.
Screwloose's above post made me think of this, not really related at all but..... I was cutting down a standing dead Elm. Cut a small wedge out, barely got started on the back cut, then "weird stuff" started going on, the saw was moving with the arc of the tree going down. You know how things happen REAL fast? I pulled the saw and the tree went just where I wanted it to. I still don't exactly know why it happened, but the whole tree was barkless but sound, including my cut's at the stump. For some crazy reason the whole tree including the stump fell in the exact direction I "was heading" with it. I had to finish my felling cut to separate it from the stump. The tree didn't move or react at all (in relation to the stump) during any of my cutting. I'd like to watch me do that on a video to see what made what happen.
You should have stood it back up and got a camera. I have seen some pics of your AWESOME equipment so I'm not seeing any problems in doing that.
That's no kidding right there! I had a hollowed out maple here recently that broke down one side of stump and fell 90 degrees off of the hinge during the back cut. I had this thing cabled to my truck with tension on it before starting the back cut. When it broke and fell it pulled my truck backwards a few feet. Luckily the direction it fell was safe, it just wasn't very convenient. Dead and rotted out trees certainly add a whole list of extra precautions.
I'll take the leaning, hung up, blown into, side of a hill but SOLID stuff over bug eaten hollow dry "how is this still standing" anytime. Fun when they come straight down like a demolition crew just pushed a button. All your missing is music from Benny Hill.
Anyone who has dropped very many trees probably has similar stories. I sure do. That's why having at least 2 safe escape routs is important. Of course I suppose we could all start just back cutting without a notch of any kind as I saw two knuckleheads do recently. Tree is roughly bout 26-30" dbh. As I drove by I watched it barber chair about 10 feet before it finally decided to fall. They had cut about 7 other trees the exact same way. Some of those had barber chaired as well.
I posted these before. They were so hollow that it was easy to "feel" with the saw and take precautions. They were in the middle of the wood's and most of the tops were already gone.
We have "Union Carpenter Ants" that do that here. It looks cool, my late father would have planted flowers in it.
I saved a few of those hollow chunks, thinking to try a variation of thishttp://twistedsifter.com/2012/01/how-to-make-a-stove-from-a-single-log/
